Little
did I realize after writing about the James
Lim family lost in the mountains in Josephine County, Oregon and the
tragic results for the father that about the time that article was published
on December 9th that on December 8th three east-coast, out-of-state climbers
would be ascending 11,239 foot Mt. Hood about 250 miles to the northeast
and that again the venture would turn out to be disastrous. Books will
be written and these two unfortunate stories will be another movie for
Hollywood.

Family
members of the Mt. Hood climbers flew to Oregon to help keep the story
alive in the national media. They assured us all three men were experienced
climbers; however, the body of Kelly James, 48, of Dallas, Texas was discovered
on Sunday, December 17th, by volunteer search and rescuers. Kelly was
a landscape architect, married with four children ages 13 to 26.

In an
effort to keep hope alive, his wife, Karen, said Kelly had proposed to
her on Mount Rainer and they were planning to have their 50th wedding
anniversary there so up until his frozen body was discovered she and Kelly’s
brother, Frank, remained confident he was coming off the mountain safely.
Still unexplained was why Kelly was found in a second snow cave but his
sleeping bag, pick axes and rope were left behind in the first snow cave.
Some speculate hypothermia after such a long period on the mountain may
have caused Kelly to become confused.

His
only communication with the outside world was a cell phone call on Sunday
(December 10) to tell family members his party of three was in trouble.
One report said an autopsy of his body revealed he’d injured his shoulder.
His two friends had left the summit area for help. Authorities fear the
strong winds that had swept over the area may have blown them into one
of the many crevices on the mountain. There had been talk about the use
of probes by volunteers to help find the bodies under the snow but as
I’m drafting this article the search for their bodies has been called
off. The sheriff said it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Kelly
made a snow cave and hunkered down while his friends, Brian Hall, 37,
of Dallas and Jerry “Nikko” Cooke, 36, of Brooklyn, NY went for help.
Brian was a personal trainer and a former professional soccer player.
He was not married. Jerry was an attorney and married but had no children.
Rescue workers and T-Mobile officials said Kelly’s phone had initiated
a call at 7:20 a.m. Monday that didn’t get through and on Tuesday the
phone stopped responding to the signals, or “pings” that technicians had
been sending in hopes of raising a response and fixing the location of
Kelly. His cell phone was later discovered soaked.

Inclement
weather limited the rescue efforts for nearly a week keeping the searchers
below 7,000 feet and the initial cell phone signal came in from near the
top. They had left a note on the dashboard of their car in the parking
lot at Timberline lodge telling when they were leaving, when they planned
to be back down off the mountain and detailed the challenging route they’d
planned to take with slopes of 50 or 60 degrees and sheer walls of ice.
Experienced climbers say such an adventure on Mt. Hood in the summer months
would have tested the climbers to the limit and should not have been attempted
in the winter months. Snow and winds of 100 to 130 miles hit the mountain.

The
whole Pacific Northwest got bombarded with high winds on Friday evening,
December 15th. Our home was without power overnight and many rural homes
still remain without power as electric companies work to restore service.
The storm delivered a vicious blow as hurricane -strength winds toppled
trees onto houses and downed trees closed many roads due to hazardous
conditions and yet there were those lacking in common sense who went to
the ocean to watch the waves. Rainfall from the storm dropped between
two and three inches in the valley where I live with five inches in the
Cascades and eight inches on the coast. Flood warnings were issued throughout
the areas. In Oregon and Washington nearly a half million people or more
were without power.

The
debate continued to rage whether rescuers should be sent back up the mountain
to try to locate the other two who were felt to be in an extremely volatile
avalanche area and only helicopters were hovering over those areas on
good weather days looking for clues. The families would like closure but
the question being asked of those who believe the rescuers should continue
is: If it was your volunteer father, son or brother going back on that
mountain and possibly lose their lives, is it worth it?

These
highly trained professional rescuers are mainly volunteers – men with
a heart to save humanity from its stupidity but the sheriff continued
to reiterate only so long as weather conditions were favorable would he
send the teams up on the mountain to search for the other two but the
question that has been asked by many: How many days? Three more? Five
more? Just how many? Some of them may be paid by the hour on their regular
jobs and they’d be losing money. Their bosses may be needing them on the
job but they all agreed so long as the sheriff wanted them to go back
after sufficient rest they would comply but as of Wednesday, December
20th, a source told me the search had been called off.

In an
effort to give hope to the families, the Oregonian from Portland, Oregon
on December 15, 2006 wrote about three teens stranded on Mount Hood for
13 days who walked off the mountain in January 1976 thirty pounds lighter
but alive. They were sustained by the Bible, Jell-O and pancake mix. Weather
again was a factor in the search efforts. Randy Knapp, now a finish carpenter
and part-time pastor lives in Medford, Oregon was 18 at the time. His
two friends, Matt Meacham and Gary Schneider, both 16, set off on New
Year’s Eve 1975 for a summit climb from Timberline Lodge. They were well
prepared with 10 day’s rations, down coats and sleeping bags, crampons,
rope, ice axes and a stove but this was before cell phones and perhaps
even before Mountain Locator units (MLU) which now are still only used
by about half the climbers.

Now,
it may be possible these three out-of-state climbers did not have sufficient
food supplies that these teenagers had. Perhaps they were just planning
an overnight stay on the mountain and then back to their home states and
their jobs. While some mountain recreational areas require people to sign
in and list their supplies, apparently Mt. Hood does not have that requirement.

Had
the three of them planned this trip for many weeks? Did they work it around
some vacation time? Did they have their plane tickets in advance? Did
they fly in, rent a car and head for Mt. Hood without recognizing that
a bad storm was on the way? Were they so eager to climb this mountain
and return to their families safely, they forgot a few of the basics?
Although it has been reported the MLUs may not be any more reliable than
a cell phone under certain conditions, a great deal of talk has been about
them neglecting to have one or two. Mt. Hood may be one of the easiest
mountains to climb in the world but it still can be unrelenting when the
weather turns bad and that can happen very rapidly. The snow can begin
to fall and soon there is a whiteout and climbers are lost. Is it possible
that east coast climbers are laughed at if they return to tell their friends
they climbed Mt. Hood with the help of a MLU? Maybe that climb wouldn’t
count. Did the testosterone factor perhaps enter into the equation?

Forty-year
old Bobby Unser, the champion race- car driver, winner of a number of
Indianapolis 500s and a place in the International Motor Sports Hall of
Fame and a friend took off on snowmobiles one sunny, December 1996 winter
day in the Rockies. Mechanical problems developed with the snowmobiles.
Unser’s compass told him they were about 15 miles from civilization but
dusk and a blinding whiteout of gale-driven snow was quickly causing landmarks
to disappear.

Unser
was the first man to qualify for a race at speeds over 200 mph and now
the most important race of his life depended on averaging just one mile
an hour as they struggled down steep cliffs, through a maze of narrow
canyons. They finally built a snow cave and hunkered down. The next morning
they trekked through a snowy pasture and found a deserted barn that fortunately
had a small electric heater and a working telephone. Search and rescue
professionals estimated they had gone through almost 20 miles of some
of the wildest country in the Colorado Rockies. They were treated for
hypothermia and severe dehydration. They were near the end of their endurance
when they reached safety. In an ironic aftermath, a federal judge later
fined Unser $75 for snowmobiling in a wilderness area. Outraged, Unser
appealed. (Source: Jan. 1998 Reader’s Digest)

We have
to be licensed to drive a vehicle and we must wear our seatbelts or get
ticketed. Motorcyclists must be licensed and helmets are recommended for
adults and required for young folks. Scuba divers must be certified. Children
riding bicycles and kayakers as well as for other sports must wear helmets.
The Coast Guard requires commercial fishermen to have some type of device
on their boats that send a signal to a satellite in case they get into
trouble. Ferry and cruise operators and even people who own boats and
only take them for a spin on a calm river or lake have numerous requirements.
White water rafters are required to wear life jackets. You would think
if retail businesses selling liquor are required to post signs informing
the public of affects of alcohol on pregnant women that certain signs
could be placed on roads leading to these mountains that say, “climb at
your own risk” but I’m sure there would always be those special people
willing to lay down their lives to save the “risk takers” if they got
in trouble.

A father
can be charged with “neglect” if his son is injured on a bicycle without
a helmet but this same father can take his son mountain climbing with
no restrictions. There is no law requiring mountain climbers to take a
MLU with them. The Oregon legislature – now controlled by the Democrats
since the November election and with a Democrat governor, will probably
introduce lots of bills to make mountain climbing safer when it convenes
in January; however, the Oregonian newspaper editorial board said recently
this Mt. Hood drama is not reason to try to prohibit access or require
climbing insurance or pass new laws or rules.

The
paper claims such laws would be costly and impossible to enforce. It claims
ten thousand people a year climb Mt. Hood or hike its upper glaciers.
(I’m wondering how they arrive at that figure if there is no “sign-in”
requirement.) The article claims in the Alps where climbing insurance
is required, the coverage has led to a false sense of security among climbers
– and a substantial increase in the number and severity of accidents.
Making payment for rescue explicit has encouraged more risky behavior.

I was
always under the impression that lost climbers could eat snow to keep
them from becoming dehydrated but I’m learning from some experts lots
of calories are needed to turn that snow into the water our bodies need.
So even water is essential and lots of

Nutritional
food. That is apparently what kept the three teenagers 31 years ago alive
for 13 days.

While
the cost to Oregon taxpayers may be in the thousands it should be noted
that most military aircraft use these experiences as training missions.
The aircraft is continually maintained and the pilots are already on the
payroll. Two unmanned drones were also launched but grounded due to wind.
A Nevada Air National Guard C-130 equipped with heat-sensing devices flew
over the mountain initially but had to turn back after 15 minutes due
to severe turbulence. An Army Chinook helicopter from Fort Lewis, Washington
arrived to assist.

But
who pays? It’s a sticky question. It is usually the “risk takers” in extreme
sports such as rock climbing, winter mountaineering, skiing out of bounds
that require rescuing. But don’t insurance companies charge a higher premium
if these types buy life insurance? Or do they believe they are immortal
requiring no life insurance?

Over
and above the rescue effort costs, there is the cost to Social Security
that Kelly’s children under 18 will be receiving. Even if his wife should
remarry, unless her new husband adopted the children, which is highly
unlikely, the children will get a monthly check. A widow lady near me
said she received $900 a month for each of her four girls under 18 when
her husband died. The amount is determined from the salary of the deceased
spouse and whether the widow works or not. If a stay-at-home mother, who
never worked and therefore never paid into Social Security, passed away,
her husband would probably receive nothing.

Frank
James said Kelly felt closest to God when he was on the mountain. I’ve
heard it said there are no atheists in foxholes and I suppose that could
apply to mountains too.

Did
Kelly die doing what he loved? Has the fate of his two friends ended up
the same way? But what about the responsibility to the families left behind
due to their carelessness? It is indeed an unfortunate situation. Oregon
is truly a “blue” state.

We’re
blue because of the death of James Lim and Kelly James within about a
two-week time span separated by about 300 miles. While there is never
a good time to have to plan a funeral for our family members, it is especially
difficult just before the Christmas holidays.

It all
boils down to personal responsibility. The government has taken over so
many areas of our lives these past forty years, is it possible we just
figure Big Brother will always be there to bail us out of treacherous
situations? But beware. An Ann Landers column dated 8/5/1988 told how
Wisconsin senators approved a measure letting visually challenged (they
called it blind in 1988) people hunt deer providing a sighted person accompanied
them. The vote was 27 to 6. But what if the sighted person was V.P. Dick
Cheney? Yes, it all boils down to common sense.

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The
unknown author of an “Obituary to Common Sense” found on the internet
said, “I’m beginning to fear common sense was preceded in death by his
parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility
and his son, Reason and not many attended his funeral because so few realized
he was gone.” And as I noted in my article about the Lims, my fear is
that far too many young people are learning to depend too much on technology
and forgetting about common sense or that little voice down deep inside
that says, “STOP, THIS COULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR WELL BEING.”

Betty is a former Oregon Republican party activist
having served as state party secretary, county chairman, 5th congressional
vice chairman and then elected chairman, and a precinct worker for many
years but Betty gave up on the two-party system in 2004 and joined the
Constitutional Party.